Incandescent Wrath
by Tempest's Rain
Summary: Dr Bruce Banner was not impressed with how the Rogues had betrayed the peoples' faith in them, his faith or Tony's. He had some things he needed to get off his chest. Or: The One Where Dr Bruce Banner Has Several Points He Wants To Make Clear While Terrorising The Rogue Avengers.


_"It's good to meet you, Dr Banner. Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."_

 _"Thanks."_

Bruce sometimes thought about their first meeting. Honestly, he hadn't really known what he was supposed to make of it at the time. Even later, when he had gotten to know the real Tony Stark - seen the man without his masks - he hadn't really understood what had caused the other man to not only not fear him, but to accept him as he was. It wasn't like with the others, who liked and trusted him enough - Bruce Banner - despite his ability to... well, turn into an enormous green rage monster. No... It was nothing like how Steve continually made polite endeavours in an attempt to ensure that he never got stressed or agitated, how Thor perked up whenever he raised his voice (no doubt prepared to try and appease the Other Guy should he make an appearance), or how Nat and Clint would constantly probe him to try and gauge his mood, Clint with slightly serious jests and Natasha with more direct queries. Tony just... didn't seem to care.

Well, no. That's not quite right.

Tony did _care,_ he just wasn't worried about facing the Hulk. Unlike the others, Tony never made a _point_ of including him in activities or treating him like any other baseline human, he just _did._ He looked out for Bruce... _for Bruce,_ not for the Hulk or a fear of the potential consequences of releasing his counterpart. And he took care of the Hulk, not because he was an extension of his Science Bro, but because Hulk was his friend too. He befriended and (remarkably) accepted the both of them individually, and Bruce... he had no idea what to do with that.

Bruce didn't exactly have a lot of experience with people. He had loved his mother fiercely but hated his father with a passion, loved Betty fully but despised _her_ father intensely. He wasn't exactly a poster boy for healthy relationships. He had never even _dreamed_ of one day having a best friend, even before the incident which had spawned his big, green counterpart.

But that's what Tony was. His best friend, his _Science Bro._

Which was why he had come back.

He couldn't have returned straight away after Johannesburg and Sokovia, not with how the Hulk was so... _tense,_ and almost _emotionally_ fragile. Not with how compromised he was after what that HYDRA witch had done to him. But, after a trip to space, where he ended up as some sort of gladiator for a few months before Thor showed up and he helped prevent the destruction of a planet, he had come back to Earth with a new understanding and acceptance of the Hulk, and a new bond of trust. He was finally ready to face what he had left behind - to come back to Tony and the Avengers, who were the first worthwhile people that Bruce had wanted to return to in a long, long time. He returned, with Thor and his not-so-wayward brother, Loki, so they could finally start to rebuild what had been shattered by Ultron.

...Only to find that the Avengers had fought and split 4 months previously, with the majority of them being fugitives from the law.

To say that Bruce was confused would be an understatement. He knew from what Thor had told him that they had won the battle against ULTRON and that the Avengers had been rebuilt, so he couldn't fathom what could have caused such a rift in the team. That was when Bruce was fully able to appreciate the sheer _idiocy_ of Steve Rogers, a man he had, at the very least, _trusted._

Steve had let the witch onto the team.

After everything that she'd done... After _Johannesburg (God, all those people - those_ regular, innocent _people - who were_ **murdered** _for a_ distraction)... After that **_evil_** _monster_ had spent _years_ killing and using psychological _torture_ on people _(do you even_ care _about what she did to me, Steve?)_ for _HYDRA!_ She was given a free pass because she had decided that destroying the entirety of humanity might be bad for everyone, including her!?

Oh no, but that wasn't all.

No, Steve had committed an offence against the world that Bruce _knew_ he would never be able to forgive him for. In Bruce's opinion, the only thing worse than betraying his faith and trust, was betraying that of the world's. Steve was abusing his powers so that _he_ could get what _he_ wanted and damn the rest of the world. He had been conducting unsanctioned missions in unaware, _populated_ places, with neither the knowledge nor the permission of the countries. He had decided to give himself more power than he had the _right_ to, and when the world had finally had enough and demanded that he stop, he had had gone on the run, killing more people in the process. And he and his team had hurt Tony and Rhodes.

Bruce knew most of what had happened during the Civil War from what he had been told by Natasha and Rhodes, with Tony and Vision giving input every now and then. (One of) Tony's protégé(s), Peter Parker also gave a very detailed description of the fight that had taken place at a Leipzig airport, which had resulted in Rhodes' injury. Bruce also knew that something of importance had happened in a HYDRA base in Siberia - something that had ended with Tony in a coma and a less than optimal chance of survival - but as far as he was aware, no one actually knew what had happened except for FRIDAY, Tony himself, Steve and his best friend, Bucky Barnes, and none of them were sharing. Whatever had happened was obviously bad, and more than likely irreparable for Steve and Tony's friendship.

So when Tony had begun moving metaphorical mountains to get the Rogues pardoned and back in the US, Bruce was understandably confused. He was also a little angry, to be honest, until he had talked to Tony and found out why. To be honest, it was a pretty compelling argument, but he still didn't like it. Not at all. So when he had found out about the Dead Pool that Wade had set up? Well, he decided that it might be worth getting in on, _especially_ when he saw what the winners would receive. Besides, it was for a worthy cause, so he didn't feel the least bit guilty.

Even without the little competition that had been set up, Bruce still would have had to talk to Steve. For the world, for himself, and for Tony.

Bruce had failed at being a friend before. Sure, he had a good excuse, what with the Other Guy and stress not mixing well. But at the end of the day, whenever Tony had needed him he hadn't come through. He'd either fallen asleep or backed down because it was easier than standing up for himself and for his friend. But he was done with that now. Now, he was going to be the good friend that he should've been before - he was going to be the Science Bro that Tony deserved.

~0~0~0~0~0~

Wanda woke up from her fitful sleep with a choked off cry of terror.

Despite herself, she had had nightmares for the rest of the night after Natasha had left. It was silly, she knew that she could handle herself against the spy - for all the dangers that Natasha posed, her training could never compete with Wanda's powers. But even so, Natasha's words the night before and Clint's quiet assurances that she was telling the truth had put her on edge. It wasn't just Natasha that Wanda was scared of, though. Her dreams had been of simultaneously _burning_ and _freezing_ , of her bones _shattering_ against unyielding fists, of power working its way into her mind and _twisting,_ and **ripping** , and **_tearing_** until her own magic turned against her and she was weak once more. But that was _nothing_ compared to what she dreamed when she reached hell, where the dead of Sokovia, Johannesburg, Lagos and the people she had tortured and killed for HYDRA had awaited her. Her dead family - even _Pietro_ \- had been among them there and they all cursed her and judged her for their lost lives.

Wanda hated it.

Why should she feel guilty? She had done what she had to do. Everything she was, was what the world had _made_ her into. All the lives lost were the result of her being used by HYDRA. It was outside of her control! It wasn't her fault! It _wasn't!_

It wasn't.

The fact that she was even having these doubts, even if it were only while she slept, made Wanda hate Stark even more. For almost as long as she could remember, she had wanted to kill the weapons and business tycoon. She still remembered the terror and the grief and the hatred that had settled into her soul as she and Pietro had waited for the bomb that had orphaned them to blow up and finish the job - killing the last of the Maximoff family. She remembered the tremble in her twin's arms as he held her, crying silently, in contrast to her shuddering sobs. She could picture the way that the dust from the rubble of their home had stuck to their tear tracks, making them look already dead, like broken china dolls. She remembered focusing all of the pain, the sorrow, the rage onto the name STARK, and never really letting it go. She remembered how the passionate hatred was what had saved them from the fate that the rest of HYDRA's volunteers met when they gained their powers.

Wanda hated Tony Stark with every fibre of her being. She hated him for killing her family - not because of that bomb specifically, but because he was a man who sold fire and shrapnel and death to bad men who used it with no regard to innocents like her family, to innocents like she had once been. She hated him for the fact that her hatred of him had caused her to become twisted herself. She hated him for what he had forced her and her brother to become so that she could rid the world him.

Wanda hated him for what she had done to herself.

It was _his_ fault, not hers! It wasn't _hers!_

It _wasn't._

It wasn't.

Wanda was startled out of her thoughts by a knock on her door. She opened it to find Steve standing there.

"I just wanted to make sure you were alright," he said gently. "The rest of us are all going to meet for breakfast in the kitchen in a few minutes."

"I will be there shortly," Wanda replied stiffly, still thinking about her distressing dreams.

Steve clearly noticed, "Hey, are you OK?"

She nodded. "Yes, I'm just... I'm just thinking about Vision," she said, latching onto her other large concern in order to distract both herself and Steve from something neither of them could fix. She truly missed Vision, and his clinical dismissal of her the other day saddened her. Wanda wanted what they had before; that burgeoning… something. Being denied any emotional response from her friend (and maybe something more) had stung, and she needed some form of acknowledgement from him at the very least.

"Oh..." Steve seemed at a slight loss of what to say, "Hey, don't worry about it. You two were really close before. I'm sure he'll come around. Remember; what happened... None of it was your fault."

Wanda gave a smile, "Thanks Steve." He was right of course, but that didn't really solve her problem.

Steve gave her a reassuring smile of his own before he turned to go, and Wanda closed the door to get dressed.

 _(It wasn't her fault.)_

~0~0~0~0~0~

Bruce was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee _("Lifeblood," his inner Tony automatically corrected him, causing him to smile for a second)_ waiting for the Rogues to arrive in the kitchen. He had thought about how he wanted to do this for a while, before finally deciding that he would just show up and make his position as clear as he could. He'd leave the dramatics for the other, crazier people he knew would want to get a turn (The Guardians of the Galaxy immediately sprang to mind).

It wasn't long before he heard the sounds of the six people he wanted to see shuffling into the kitchen. Steve was walking ahead of everyone else, Maximoff just behind him, while Barnes followed Sam, Clint and Scott Lang, who were trailing behind Steve and Maximoff and looking rather despondent. Bruce was aware of the exact moment that they registered he was there because all at once they froze. Bruce glanced at them for a moment, taking in how tired and wary they all looked. He managed to withhold the smirk that wanted to make its way onto his face as guessed that Natasha must have visited them the previous evening. There weren't too many people who would decide to give their version of the shovel talk during the night, but he knew that their reactions would be a lot stronger if they had met Deadpool or a certain team with a genetically and cybernetically enhanced raccoon with a gun fetish and a talking tree-man. Bruce tipped his head in a gesture that told them all to come in, and almost smiled again when he heard Clint mutter, _"Shit, we didn't even make it to breakfast."_

"Bruce; it's been a long time," Steve greeted amicably after a moment. "What are you doing here?" A shadow passed over his face and he looked dangerously close to using his 'Captain America Disapproves' expression, "You aren't seriously going to join in with the others in threatening us away from Tony, are you?"

Bruce didn't even have to think before he replied, "Damn right, I am, Steve!" Bruce's reply had clearly shocked everyone, because they all froze and stared at him, clearly not expecting him to be so aggressive against Steve's bullshit. In the past, he would have been passive or just surrendered his point completely, but he had a lot more self-confidence these days and a friend to do right by.

"Tony was working with Ross, Bruce!" Steve eventually tried to justify. "We had no choice! What happened wasn't our fault - Tony deserves at least the same amount of blame that we do!"

"Not from where I'm standing, he doesn't," Bruce replied calmly but clearly. "From what I can see, Tony, Vision and Rhodes were the only ones who tried to do right by everyone. You have _no_ idea how lucky we were to get the Accords that we did. Those documents were quite bad, but I had been expecting something much, _much_ worse to appear, what with all the incidents we've had over the years and considering what society's usual first response to minorities is. The mutants and inhumans get enough heat as it is, whether they use their abilities in combat or not. But after what happened with the enhanced people that were _supposed_ to be fighting, in Johannesburg? _Sokovia_?" Bruce shook his head in disbelief, "Lagos was just the final crisis that prompted a response that was a long time coming. There was no way that the world wasn't going to act. And to be honest, they were right to."

"How can you of all people say that?" Maximoff exclaimed in outrage.

"Bruce, you of all people should understand. You, who spent years running from the government and hiding out in third world countries, just to keep away from Ross! You, who know what it's like to have the government want to use you as a weapon to further their agendas! You, know who he is and what he's capable of better than anyone!" Steve exclaimed righteously over the top of the witch.

 _"Which was why Tony was working with him!"_ Bruce practically hissed before shaking his head in an attempt to calm down, which worked marginally. He ignored what Steve had said prior to his last sentence, because he knew that if he focused on it he would go completely off track and he might not remember to say the things he really needed to. "Don't you _see,_ this was the perfect opportunity to get as much dirt on Ross as possible to put him away. We all know that he wasn't going to end up in prison if the only evidence was my testimony. Betty's wouldn't have done much good either if Tony hadn't got all the evidence needed to support a case against Ross." His voice grew softer and more analytical, "But that's beside the point. The Accords were the _best chance_ we were going to have to get support for a bill that would hold us accountable for our actions in a _humane_ way. A United Nations document with the support of over 100 countries, which treated us as _humans,_ rather than classifying us as weapons or _fauna_." Bruce looked at them all, "If you had all signed, it would have made it a _lot_ easier to get passed, and a lot easier to be _amended_. This was always going to happen, but the Accords as they were, were a _Godsend_ compared to what the usual first response is to minorities."

Bruce watched as Sam, Clint and Lang exchanged uncomfortable looks filled with hints of realisation, to his satisfaction. Barnes looked captivated by what he was saying, and Bruce remembered that he wasn't involved in the Civil War out of any sense of political belief, or even his own choice. Even Maximoff had a small frown on her face as though she was seeing a point she hadn't thought of before and didn't like what that might mean for her. Steve, though, was already shaking his head with stubborn denial.

"Just because the Accords were better than what they could have been, doesn't mean that we should have just given in and accepted them. The Avengers aren't supposed to be the puppets of politicians' whims," he said, with a potent air of self-righteousness. "We can't trust people in power to have the best interests of the people at heart. We have a responsibility to use our powers and abilities to protect the people - the _little guy_ , and the only way that we can ensure that we do that is if we take matters into our own hands and make sure that we aren't being governed by people who would hold us back."

Bruce stared at him for a moment, oblivious to everything else but Steve's alarming sincerity, "Steve... When you have as much power as you do, and you want to use it to police people, you **_need_** oversight. You've proven the point yourself, by going around and… and acting like _Hitler and his Gestapo,"_ he noticed that Steve wasn't the only on to flinch at the comparison, but while the others looked shocked, ashamed or guilty, Steve seemed to be getting angry. "I mean, what was your plan in Lagos?"

That stopped Steve's anger in favour of his confusion, "What do you mean? We had to stop Rumlow once we recognised him."

Bruce shook his head, "Why? You had no idea what he was up to, you were in a densely populated area - which you didn't have permission to operate in at all, and you didn't make any attempts to alert any authorities so they could evacuate the area. There was no immediate emergency that would warrant engaging in an enhanced fight with a known - and dangerous - HYDRA operative, in an area jam-packed with civilians." Bruce saw shock make its way onto many of the faces of the people who had been present, as though they were beginning to realise just how stupid that move had been, "This is exactly the reason that police officers and army personal must have oversight and review boards and whatever else. Just about every field in public services has them, from doctors to lawyers, to teachers, to wardens. No matter how good your intentions are, everyone in these sorts of positions, where people need to be able to rely upon them, needs to be able to be held accountable for all their actions- good and bad."

"Tony never had any oversight when he was playing Iron Man," Steve pointed out churlishly. Before Bruce could respond, and to everyone's surprise, Clint argued the point.

"Actually, that was the whole point of announcing that he was Iron Man to the press," everyone looked at Clint in surprise, who shrugged. "I asked him about it once. He said he needed to have people who would be able to tell him when enough was enough and stop him from going too far. He couldn't- _wouldn't_ take orders from SHIELD because no one knew who we were, so we could get away with anything. He knew that if he tried to keep his identity a secret, he'd be in SHIELD's debt and he'd have to take orders from us. He wasn't going to let himself be used like that - not with how powerful the suit was."

"What does that have to do with him being held accountable?" Lang asked in interest.

"It meant, that instead of being beholden to a clandestine government organisation with completely unknown morals and goals, Boss was in the eye of - and accountable to - the public," FRIDAY's voice supplied in a smug, superior tone, causing everyone except Clint, Barnes and Bruce to jump.

"At that point in time there were barely any enhanced people using their abilities to police others. Just Tony and the X-Men, really - that anyone knew about," Bruce brought everyone's attention back to him, "The mutants were just starting to appear more in the public eye, and practically no one knew about the inhumans, so they – Iron Man and the X-Men, that is - were viewed more as an anomaly rather than a minority of people, so there was no crying need for a new system to be developed. It helped that Tony and the X-Men were responsible and worked with the right people when necessary, plus they had an extremely low casualty rate and no tolerance for collateral damage. Sometimes people died that they couldn't do anything to stop, but they never viewed anyone as an acceptable casualty," Bruce looked hard at Steve then, ready to deliver his next point, "Unlike you."

Steve sighed, "Bruce, like you said, sometimes people die, and you can't do anything about that. There are always casualties in war, but we just have to do what we can and keep going. We can't just give up whenever someone dies."

"I bet you wouldn't be saying that if the hypothetical casualties were important to you, Steve," Bruce said with a pointed glance at Barnes. He watched at Steve became defensive.

"Bucky was innocent! They were going to hunt him down and kill him for something he didn't do!" Steve cried.

"I agree with you that he _was_ an innocent to _start_ with, Steve, but," Bruce allowed some of his true anger to show on his face as his voice lowered, "was he _more_ innocent than Alina and Mihai Apostol?" At the blank looks on everyone's face he laughed bitterly, "Oh, don't you know their names? They were a pair of _four-year-old_ twins who died in the tunnel collapse when you, Sam, T'Challa and Barnes were running around in Bucharest. Alina died of blunt trauma _almost_ immediately when her mother's car crashed due to the tunnel collapse. Mihai lasted a few hours longer, trapped in the car with his unconscious mother and dead sister, but eventually he bled out from wounds sustained by broken glass. He might've survived if his leg hadn't been pinned to the seat, but as it was, he died slowly before anyone could find him. The mother, a now childless widow, lives with her brother. Her name, is Rahela Apostol. So _tell me,_ Steve, is Barnes more innocent than the Apostol twins and the nine other civilians who died? Is Barnes' life worth more than theirs?"

Everyone was looking shocked and upset at what was apparently news to them. Sam, in particular, looked like he wanted to be violently ill. But it was Barnes' response that interested Bruce the most. He looked utterly devastated at the knowledge of the dead children.

"Of course not, Bruce!" Steve yelled in desperation. "But there was nothing we could do about that!"

"Like there was nothing you could do about the SHIELD agents who were killed, captured or _tortured_ when you and Natasha burned them and all their covers along with SHIELD? Like their _families?_ Like there was nothing we could do for the people- the _families_ in Johannesburg and Sokovia that the witch destroyed?" He paused, before adding, "Like Tony? Because from where I'm standing, it seems like any casualty is acceptable to you as long as you complete your personal mission."

Steve ignored the first of what Bruce said when Tony was brought up, "That's not true, Bruce. What has Tony been telling you? You must know that you've only heard one side of the story."

"I was with Tony after the Mandarin incident, Steve. I know what happened to most of the SHIELD agents and many of their families, and I know that you never gave them a backwards glance afterwards. And Tony hasn't talked about whatever happened between you in Siberia to anyone, as far as I know. FRIDAY won't talk about it either, but I know that whatever you did to hurt him had worse consequences than the artificial sternum and the re-addition of the arc reactor." There were a few startled movements, telling Bruce that they probably weren't aware that Tony had had to put the reactor back in his chest again, "But even though I don't know what happened there, I still should've stood up for him all those times in the past that you tried to bully him and emotionally manipulate him. I should have been the friend to him that he was to me, instead of telling myself to let it go and that it was fine."

"Steve never bullied anyone, especially not Stark! You have no idea what you're talking about!" Wanda defended fervently.

"Thank you, Wanda." Steve looked at Bruce, defiantly, "She's right, I don't know what you're talking about in terms of bullying, Bruce. Me and Tony didn't part on the best of terms, but before that we just disagreed sometimes. Tony didn't always do the right thing for the Avengers and the rest of the world, although I know his heart was in the right place, so we used to argue. But we were family, Bruce - all of us, and I never bullied him, even when he was being difficult."

Bruce scoffed in disgust, "If that's what you think about Tony then you don't know him at all. He's complicated, sharp and emotionally unconventional, but he always tries to do what he thinks is right- and he often is. We were usually too quick to defend the status quo - and attack him for trying to change it – to see that. You, _especially,_ seemed to always be determined to keep things as they were in the big picture, Steve. You know, the party we held after we took out that HYDRA cell and retrieved Loki's sceptre and the HYDRA twins made their debut - the one where Ultron showed up? Well, I think that was a pretty accurate representation of the Avengers as they were under your command. _Especially_ the part where Thor held Tony up by his _throat,_ and none of us said anything. _None of us did anything!"_

When Bruce looked at the others again, he knew that his eyes were green. He felt a twisted sort of pleasure in seeing the way they all froze in fear at the possibility of the Other Guy making an appearance.

"Bruce? You think you can calm down, man? Just take a few deep breaths for me-" Sam eventually started speaking in a soft tone that Bruce imagined that he used to talk down veterans during anxiety attacks.

Bruce cut him off with a quick laugh, "Don't worry, Sam. The Hulk isn't gonna make an appearance unless I'm attacked. This is my show right now, but he can hear everything we say, and he has a few things he'll probably want to tell you all at a later date. But I guess I'm not really surprised that this was your first reaction. It used to be mine too. There were only two people in my life who ever looked at the Hulk and saw a _who,_ instead of a _what._ I never believed them, even though I knew to some extent that the Hulk wasn't a mindless thing and that he was capable of reason and friendship and emotions more complicated than anger. I only really figured out what Tony and Betty were trying to tell me recently."

"That... That's great, Bruce!" Steve said weakly and warily.

"You don't believe me. That's fine - I really don't care about your opinion of me anymore. My best friend and the love of my life both knew it before I did, and they both believe me now, which is all I really need. But I also have more, because I am a part of the New Avengers, and the rest of the world. I have friends who trust me and who I can trust in turn, now. And so does Tony, so I'm warning you right now; you ever relapse into your old ways or you ever hurt Tony again, then you better be prepared to deal with us- all of us. And we don't take kindly to people who abuse others or think they have more rights than the people. We especially don't like people who hurt our friends."

Bruce got up to leave the Compound, walking past the wary people he had once called friends, but before he exited the room he turned and couldn't resist adding, "You know, I put my money on Hope being the scariest of us all, but, just so you know, there's a lot of us who are watching out for Tony now. And my bet was a hard call."

Tony probably wasn't the best influence when it came to not being dramatic, but Bruce couldn't find it in himself to regret the fact that he was finally able to strut, rather than tiptoe. Speaking of, he had a science date to get to with his Science Bro, and a regular date to prepare for with his fiancée.

He didn't look back.

~0~0~0~0~0~

James had listened to everything the doctor who had the ability to turn into the Hulk had said, but his mind kept returning to three words in particular.

 _Alina. Mihai. Rahela._

Three more victims to add to his collection inside his head, only...

Only those three names weren't the victims of the Winter Soldier - weren't even enemies that Bucky had used to kill. No, their deaths were the responsibility of Rogers, T'Challa, Sam and _James._

The casualty rates that the lawyer had divulged the other night rang in his ears, _"...eleven dead and twenty-nine injured_ civilians _from the collapsed tunnel in Bucharest..."_

It hadn't been real for him then. Not until now. Not until...

 _Alina. Mihai. Rahela._

Two dead children and one injured mother without them. Three innocents.

 _Alina. Mihai. Rahela._

And nine more dead to add to the list of James' victims, plus the other twenty-eight injured. The police officers. The families left behind.

 _Alina. Mihai. Rahela... Tony._

He didn't even know the names of the others.

What had he gotten himself into by following Rogers?

James could see that particular question in the eyes of Sam, Clint and Scott's eyes now. Rogers was looking disgruntled and upset, but not like he was really thinking about what the doctor had actually said. Maximoff... The witch... James wasn't sure what was going on in her mind, but she seemed to be angry, but too scared to actually speak out about it.

He had known that she was HYDRA, and while he hadn't been very happy with the fact that she was one of her own choice, he had felt sorry for her. From what he'd been told by Rogers and the others, she had been manipulated into the organisation at a young age, along with her recently deceased twin, after the death of her parents and that she had been experimented on and forced to become a weapon. James had always been wary of her, since he was aware that her powers involved the ability to mentally manipulate people using magic, but he'd thought she'd been similar to him. He'd thought that she'd been indoctrinated too young to truly know what kind of monsters she was working with and why what they did was wrong, like the Red Room's pupils. He'd thought that she was misled into doing terrible things, but that she'd had enough agency to rebel when she realised what she was really doing.

But James wasn't sure what to think now.

About any of it.

Scott's carefully calm voice broke through his thoughts, "I thought you guys said that if he'd been here he'd have been on our side."

Sam swallowed, "We thought he would have been. It was Ross, after all..."

"It seems Tony's influence over Bruce has extended too far. I never thought it was wise for someone so volatile to be constantly around someone so, well, _explosive_ like Banner. I guess I was right, just not in the way I expected," Rogers said in annoyance, completely missing the point that Scott had been making. James wasn't sure how he could be ignorant to the incredulous looks both Scott and Sam directed at him, or the loaded glance shared by him and Clint, but he didn't seem to pick up on it.

Maximoff looked to Rogers, "It's too dangerous for such a dangerous person like the Hulk to be so loyal to someone like Stark."

Rogers began nodding, but before he could reply or encourage her train of thought, Clint spoke up with a hard note of warning, "Yeah, well, there's not much we can do about any of that, and even if we could, it's not our call anyway."

Scott and Sam exchanged wary glances with James before tensing slightly as Maximoff, Rogers nodding along with her, began to debate, "But thing of all the damage he could do if he got out of control! How much more likely is it that he'd be set off around someone like Stark! He shouldn't-"

"Wanda. Drop it," Clint said in a low, dangerous voice. "I know Bruce, and I trust him with himself and his choices regarding Hulk. And while I can't pretend to completely get his relationship with Tony, I understand it enough to know that Tony cares about him and that he would never use him like that. Being with Tony seems to calm Bruce down a lot, too."

"How do you know that?" Sam asked curiously, probably trying to diffuse the tension.

Clint gave a small shrug and his lips quirked into a small smile, obviously attached to a fond memory, "They saved me. From myself. After New York." The fact that he didn't say any more was a sign that his loyalties and faith to the group were strained right now, James noted. He decided to ask the question that he was interested in, hoping that it would stop his mind from wandering back to his new list of names.

"So Stark was only working with Ross so that he could get rid of him altogether?" Everyone looked at him, which wasn't surprising considering he usually didn't speak out. In the years they had been in Wakanda, James had spent a lot of time trying to catch up on what he needed to know. As such, he knew who Ross was and what he had done to the group and others before them.

Scott sighed, "Looks like. Man," he huffed a laugh, "I really misjudged him."

"What? How?" Maximoff asked sharply.

"I thought that he was trying to marginalise everyone by using the Accords, but he was really twisting the best-case scenario to create a legally binding relationship between superheroes and everyone else. He wasn't taking rights away from us, he was giving them to everyone." Everyone looked surprised by Scott's insightful analysis.

"How do you figure that?" Sam asked after a moment.

"Simple. The document refers to us as people, rather than as weapons or something worse. Plus, it makes it clear that enhanced people who aren't using their abilities to police others aren't a part of it. They are still treated like civilian citizens, rather than dangerous fugitives or volatile, potential threats." At everyone's incredulous look, he added, "I couldn't sleep after… Well, after last night, so I had a look online at the Accords."

"What did you think of them?" James asked, again drawing everyone's gazes by his question.

"I think, they are very reasonable and not at all like the shackles you guys described. I think that I was an idiot for not researching them myself before helping you in the airport. I think... I _know_ that I'm going to sign them as soon as we're given the chance," he paused. "I also think that this is just the start, because according to some news sites I found, there are many jobs and practices which are now having their contracts and legislations altered so that professions other than fighting can begin using enhanced abilities. I think that this is just the first step, and, even though it's late, I wanna be a part of it, for myself and for my daughter, so that we can live in a less shitty world."

James could feel everyone's shock at Scott's answer, and he knew that Scott could too. To be honest, James himself was also surprised by how he had spoken his mind and declared his intentions to everyone. Scott had always seemed like a follower, but he supposed even he must have his limits and a mind of his own.

Before anyone could speak up, either to challenge Scott's decision or to support him, FRIDAY's voice rang out from the ceiling.

"It's 8:00AM. Boss-Lady has asked me to inform you all that you have an appointment with her in her office in Stark Tower at 2:45PM. I must say that I'm really looking forward to being a metaphysical 'fly on the wall', as it were."

~0~0~0~0~0~

"Haha! FRIDAY, your timing is excellent, and the look on Clint, Scott and Sam's faces were priceless!"

"Thank you, Boss."

"And I'm surprised that Bruce actually stood up for me. Send a copy of that to Betty, she'll be glad to see he's got some good mental health now. Plus, I know that she'll get a kick out of watching him scare the crap outta them. She can be vindictive like that."

"Yes, but aren't all of your friends?"

"Actually, that might be true... And I gotta say, I love it. And I know you do too, FRI! You can't fool me, baby-girl!"


End file.
